Sherrington Trimm had kept Mr. Craik’s secret as well as he could, but
although he had not told his wife anything positive concerning the will
that had been so hastily drawn up, he had found it impossible not to
convey to Totty such information about the matter as was manifestly
negative. She had seen very soon that he considered the inheritance of
her brother’s money as an illusion, upon which he placed no faith
whatever, and she had understood that in advising her not to think too
much about it, he meant to do more than administer one of his customary
rebukes to her covetousness. At last, she determined to know the truth
and pressed him with the direct question.
“So far as I know, my dear,” he answered, gravely, “you will never get
that money, so you may just as well put the subject out of your mind,
and be satisfied with what you have.”
Neither diplomacy nor cajolery nor reproaches could force anything more
definite than this from Sherrington Trimm’s discreet lips, though Totty
used all her weapons, and used them very cleverly, in her untiring
efforts to find out the truth. Was Tom going to leave his gold to a
gigantic charity? Sherry’s round, pink face grew suddenly stony. Was it
a hospital or an asylum for idiots?—he really might tell her! His
expression never changed. Totty was in despair, and her curiosity
tormented her in a way that would have done credit to the gad-fly which
tortured Io of old. Neither by word, nor look, nor deed could Sherry be
made to betray his brother-in-law’s secret. He was utterly impenetrable,
as soon as the subject was brought up, and Totty even fancied that he
knew beforehand when she was about to set some carefully-devised trap
for him, so ready was he to oppose her wiles.
On the other hand since old Mr. Craik had recovered, his sister had
shown herself more than usually anxious to please him. In this she
argued as her husband had done, saying that a man who had changed his
will once might very possibly change it again. She therefore spared no
pains in consulting Tom’s pleasure whenever occasion offered, and she
employed her best tact in making his life agreeable to him. He, on his
part, was even more diverted than she intended that he should be, and he
watched all her moves with inward amusement. There had never been any
real sympathy between them. He had been the first child, and several
others had died in infancy during a long series of years, Totty, the
youngest of all, alone surviving, separated from her brother in age by
nearly twenty years. From her childhood, she had always been trying to
get something from him, and whenever the matters in hand did not chance
to clash with his own interests, he had granted her request. Indeed, on
the whole, and considering the man’s grasping character, he had treated
her with great generosity. Totty’s gratitude, however, though always
sincere, was systematically prophetic in regard to favours to come, and
Tom had often wondered whether anything in the world would satisfy her.
Of late she seemed to have developed an intense interest in the means of
prolonging life, and she did not fail to give him the benefit of all the
newest theories on the subject. Tom, however, did not feel that he was
going to die, and was more and more irritated by her officious
suggestions. One day she took upon herself to be more than usually
pressing. He had been suffering from a slight cold, and she had passed
an anxious week.
“There is nothing for you, Tom,” she said, “but a milk cure and massage.
They say there is nothing like it. It is perfectly wonderful——”
Her brother raised his bent head and looked keenly at her, while a sour
smile passed over his face.
“Look here, Totty,” he answered, “don’t you think I should keep better
in camphor?”
“How can you be so unkind!” exclaimed Totty, blushing scarlet. She
rarely blushed at all, and her brother’s amusement increased, until it
reached its climax and broke out in a hard, rattling laugh.
After this, Mrs. Trimm grew more cautious. She talked less of remedies
and cures and practised with great care a mournfully sympathetic
expression. In the course of a week or two this plan also began to wear
upon Craik’s nerves, for she made a point of seeing him almost every
day.
“I say, Totty,” he said suddenly. “If anybody is dead, tell me. If you
think anybody is going to die, send for the doctor. But if they are all
alive and well, don’t go round looking like an undertaker’s wife when
the season has been too healthy.”
“How can you expect me to look gay?” Totty asked with a sad smile. “Do
you think it makes me happy to see you going on in this way?”
“Which way?” inquired Mr. Craik with a pleased grin.
“Why, you won’t have massage, and you won’t take the milk cure, and you
won’t go to Aix, and you won’t let me do anything for you, and—and I’m
so unhappy! Oh Tom, how unkind you are!”
Thereupon Mrs. Trimm burst into tears with much feeling. Tom Craik
looked at her for some seconds and then, being in his own house, rang
the bell, sent for the housekeeper and a bottle of salts, and left Totty
to recover as best she might. He knew very well that those same tears
were genuine and that they had their source in anger and disappointment
rather than in any sympathy for himself, and he congratulated himself
upon having changed his will in time.
The old man watched George Wood’s increasing success with an interest
that would have surprised the latter, if he had known anything of it. It
seemed as if, by assuring him the reversion of the fortune, Tom Craik
had given him a push in the right direction. Since that time, indeed,
George’s luck had begun to turn, and now, though still unconscious of
the wealth that awaited him, he was already far on the road to celebrity
and independence. The lonely old man of business found a new and keen
excitement in following the doings of the young fellow for whom he had
secretly prepared such an overwhelming surprise. He was curious to see
whether George would lose his head, whether he would turn into the
fatuous idol of afternoon tea-parties, or whether he would fall into
vulgar dissipation, whether he would quarrel with his father as soon as
he was independent, or whether he would spend his earnings in making the
old gentleman more comfortable.
Tom Craik cared very little what George did, provided he did something.
What he most regretted was that he could not possibly be present to
enjoy the surprise he had planned. It amused him to think out the
details of his future. If, for instance, George took to drinking and
gambling, losing and wasting at night what he had laboured hard to earn
during the day, what a moment that would be in his life when he should
be told that Tom Craik was dead, and that he was master of a great
fortune. The old man chuckled over the idea, and fancied he could see
George’s face when, having lost more than he could possibly pay, his
young eyes heavy with wine, his hand trembling with excitement, he would
be making his last desperate stand at poker in the quiet upper room of a
gambling club. He would lose his nerve, show his cards, lose and sink
back in his chair with a stare of horror. At that moment the door would
open and Sherry Trimm would come in and whisper a few words in his ear.
Tom Craik liked to imagine the young fellow’s bound of surprise, the
stifled cry of amazement that would escape from his lips, the doubts,
the fears that would beset him until the money was his, and then the
sudden cure that would follow. Yes, thought Tom, there was no such cure
for a spendthrift as a fortune, a real fortune. To make a man love
money, give it to him all at once in vast quantities—provided he is not
a fool. And George was no fool. He had already proved that.
There was something satanic in Mr. Craik’s speculations. He knew the
world well. It amused him to fancy George, admired and courted as a
literary lion, but feared by all judicious mammas, as only young, poor
and famous literary lions are feared. How the sentimental young ladies
would crowd about him and offer him tea, cake and plots for his novels!
And how the ring of mothers would draw their daughters away from him and
freeze him with airs politely cold! How two or three would be gathered
together in one corner of the room to say to each other that two or
three others in the opposite corner were foolishly exposing their
daughters to the charms of an adventurer, for his books bring him in
nothing, my dear, not a cent—Mr. Popples told me so! And how the
compliment would be returned upon the two or three, by the other two or
three, with usurious compound interest. Enter to them, thought Craik,
another of their tribe—what do you think, my dears? Tom Craik left all
that money to George Wood, house, furniture, pictures, horses and
carriages—everything! Just think! I really must go and speak to the dear
fellow! And how they would all be impelled, at the same moment, by the
same charitable thought! How they would all glide forward, during the
next quarter of an hour, impatient to thaw with intimacy what they had
lately wished to freeze with politeness, and how, a little later, each
would say to her lovely daughter as they went home—you know Georgey
Wood—for it would be Georgey at once—is such a good fellow, so famous
and yet so modest, so unassuming when you think how enormously rich he
is. Is he rich, mamma? Why, yes, Kitty—or Totty, or Dottie, or Hattie,
or Nelly—he has all Tom Craik’s money, and that gem of a house to live
in, and the pictures and everything, and your cousin—or your aunt—Totty
is furious about it—but he is such a nice fellow. There would not be
much difficulty about getting a wife for the “nice fellow” then, thought
Thomas Craik.
And one or other of these things might have actually happened, precisely
as Thomas Craik foresaw if that excellent and worthy man, Sherrington
Trimm had not unexpectedly fallen ill during the spring that followed
George Wood’s first success. His illness was severe and was undoubtedly
caused by too much hard work, and was superinduced by a moderate but
unchanging taste for canvas-backs, truffles boiled in madeira and an
especial brand of brut champagne. Sherry recovered, indeed, but was
ordered to Carlsbad in Bohemia without delay. Totty found that it was
quite impossible for her to accompany him, considering the precarious
state of her brother’s health. To leave Tom at such a time would be
absolutely heartless. Sherrington Trimm expressed a belief that Tom
would last through the summer and perhaps through several summers, as he
never did a stroke of work and was as wiry as hairpins. He might have
added that his brother-in-law did not subsist upon cryptograms and brut
wines, but Sherry resolutely avoided suggesting to himself that the
daily consumption of those delicacies was in any way connected with his
late illness. His wife, however, shook her head, and quoting glibly
three or four medical authorities, assured him that Tom’s state was very
far from satisfactory. Mamie might go with her father, if she pleased,
but Totty would not leave the sinking ship.
“Till the rats leave it,” added Mr. Trimm viciously. His wife gave him a
mournfully severe glance and left him to make his preparations.
So he went abroad, and was busy for some time with the improvement of
his liver and the reduction of his superfluous fat, and John Bond
managed the business in his stead. John Bond was a very fine fellow and
did well whatever he undertook, so that Mr. Trimm felt no anxiety about
their joint affairs. John himself was delighted to have an opportunity
of showing what he could do and he looked forward to marrying Grace
Fearing in the summer, considering that his position was now
sufficiently assured. He was far too sensible a man to have any scruples
about taking a rich wife while he himself was poor, but he was too
independent to live upon Grace’s fortune, and as she was so young he had
put off the wedding until he felt that he was making enough money to
have all that he wanted for himself without her aid. When they were
married she could do what she pleased without consulting him, and he
would do as he liked without asking her advice or assistance. He
considered that marriage could not be happy where either of the couple
was dependent upon the other for necessities or luxuries, and that
domestic peace depended largely on the exclusion of all monetary
transactions between man and wife. John Bond was a typical man of his
class, tall, fair, good-looking, healthy, active, energetic and keen. He
had never had a day’s illness nor an hour’s serious annoyance. He had
begun life in the right way, at the right end and in a cheerful spirit.
There was no morbid sentimentality about him, no unnecessary development
of the imagination, no nervousness, no shyness, no underrating of other
people and no overrating of himself. He knew he could never be great or
famous, and that he could only be John Bond as long as he lived. John
Bond he would be, then, and nothing else, but John Bond should come to
mean a great deal before he had done with the name. It should mean the
keenest, most hardworking, most honest, most reliable, most clean-handed
lawyer in the city of New York. There was a breezy atmosphere of truth,
soap and enterprise about John Bond.
Before going abroad Sherrington Trimm asked Tom Craik whether he should
tell his junior partner of the existence of a will in favour of George
Wood. Mr. Craik hesitated before he answered.
“Well, Sherry,” he said at last, “considering the uncertainty of human
life, as Totty says, and considering that you are more used to Extra Dry
than to Carlsbad waters, you had better tell him. There is no knowing
what tricks that stuff may play with you. Let it be in confidence.”
“Of course,” said Mr. Trimm. “I would rather trust John Bond than trust
myself.”
The same day he imparted the secret to his partner. The latter nodded
gravely and then fell into a fit of abstraction which was very rare with
him. He knew a great deal of the relations existing between Constance
and George Wood, and in his frank, lawyer-like distrust of people’s
motives, he had shared Grace’s convictions about the man, though he had
always treated him with indifference and always avoided speaking of him.
There are some people whose curiosity finds relief in asking questions,
even though they obtain no answers to their inquiries. Totty was one of
these, and she missed her husband more than she had thought possible.
There had been a sort of satisfaction in tormenting him about the will,
accompanied by a constant hope that he might one day forget his
discretion in a fit of anger and let out the secret she so much desired
to learn. Now, however, there was no one to cross-examine except Tom
himself, and she would as soon have thought of asking him a direct
question in the matter as of trying to make holes in a mill-stone with a
darning-needle. Her curiosity had therefore no outlet and as her
interest was so directly concerned at the same time, it is no wonder
that she fell into a deplorably unsettled state of mind. For a long time
not a ray of light illuminated the situation, and Totty actually began
to grow thin under the pressure of her constant anxiety. At last she hit
upon a plan for discovering the truth, so simple that she wondered how
she had failed to think of it before.
Nothing indeed could be more easy of execution than what she
contemplated. Her husband kept in a desk in his room a set of duplicate
keys to the deed boxes in his office. Among these there must be also the
one that opened her brother’s box. These iron cases were kept in a
strong room that opened into a small corridor between Sherrington
Trimm’s private study and the outer rooms where the clerks worked. Totty
had her own box there, separate from her husband’s and she remembered
that there was one not far from hers on which was painted her brother’s
name. She would have no difficulty in entering the strong room alone, on
pretence of depositing a deed. Was she not the wife of the senior
partner, and had she not often done the same thing before? If her
brother had made a new will, it must be in that box, where he kept such
papers as possessed only a legal value. One glance would show her all
she wanted to know, and her mind would be at rest from the wearing
anxiety that now made her life almost unbearable.
She opened the desk and had no difficulty in finding the key to her
brother’s box. It was necessary to take something in the nature of a
deed, to hold in her hand as an excuse for entering the strong room, for
she did not want to take anything out of it, lest John Bond, who would
see her, should chance to notice the fact and should mention it to her
husband when he came back. On the other hand, it would not do to deposit
an empty envelope, sealed and marked as though it contained something
valuable. Mrs. Trimm never did things by halves nor was she ever so
unwise as to leave traces of her tactics behind her. A palpable fraud
like an empty envelope might at some future time be used against her. To
take any document away from the office, even if she returned the next
day, would be to expose herself to a cross-examination from Sherrington
when he came home, for he knew the state of her affairs and would know
also that she never needed to consult the papers she kept at the office.
There was nothing for it but to have a real document of some sort. Totty
sat down and thought the matter over for a quarter of an hour. Then she
ordered her carriage and drove down town to the office of a broker who
sometimes did business for her and her husband.
“I have made a bet,” she said, with a little laugh, “and I want you to
help me to win it.”
The broker expressed his readiness to put the whole New York Stock
Exchange at her disposal in five minutes, if that were of any use to
her.
“Yes,” said Totty. “I have bet that I will buy a share in something—say
for a hundred dollars—that I will keep it a year and that at the end of
that time it will be worth more than I gave for it.”
“One way of winning the bet would be to buy several shares in different
things and declare the winner afterwards. One of the lot will go up.”
“That would not be fair,” said Totty with a laugh. “I must say what it
is I have bought. Can you give me something of the kind—now? I want to
take it away with me, to show it.”
The broker went out and returned a few minutes later with what she
wanted, a certificate of stock to the amount of one hundred dollars, in
a well-known undertaking.
“If anything has a chance, this has,” said the broker, putting it into
an envelope and handing it to her. “Oh no, Mrs. Trimm—never mind paying
for it!” he added with a careless laugh. “Give it back to me when you
have done with it.”
But Totty preferred to pay her money, and did so before she departed.
Ten minutes later she was at her husband’s office. Her heart beat a
little faster as she asked John Bond to open the strong room for her.
She hoped that something would happen to occupy him while she was
within.
“Let me help you,” he said, entering the place with her. The strong room
was lighted from above by a small skylight over a heavy grating, the
boxes being arranged on shelves around the walls. John Bond went
straight to the one that belonged to Totty and moved it forward a little
so that she could open it. She held her envelope ostentatiously in one
hand and felt for her key in her pocket with the other. She knew which
was hers and which was her brother’s, because Tom’s had a label fastened
to it, with his name, whereas her own had none.
“Thanks,” she said, as she turned the key in the lock and raised the
lid. “Please do not stay here, Mr. Bond, I want to look over a lot of
things so as to put this I have brought into the right place.”
“Well—if I cannot be of any use,” said John. “I have rather a busy day.
Please call me to shut the room when you have finished.”
Totty breathed more freely when she was alone. She could hear John cross
the corridor and enter the private office. A moment later everything was
quiet. With a quick, stealthy movement, she slipped the other key into
the box labelled “T. Craik,” turned it and lifted the cover. Her heart
was beating violently.
Fortunately for her the will was the last paper that had been put with
the others and lay on the top of them all. The heavy blue envelope was
sealed and marked “Will,” with the date. Totty turned pale as she held
it in her hands. She had not the slightest intention of destroying it,
whatever it might contain, but even to break the seal and read it looked
very like a criminal act. On the other hand, when she realised that she
held in her hand the answer to all her questions, and that by a turn of
the fingers she could satisfy all her boundless curiosity, she knew that
it was of no use to attempt resistance in the face of such a temptation.
She realised, indeed, that she would not be able to restore the seal,
and that she must not hope to hide the fact that somebody had tampered
with the will, but the thought could not deter her from carrying out her
intention. As she turned, her sleeve caught on the corner of the box
which she had inadvertently left open and the lid fell with a sharp
snap. Instantly John Bond’s footstep was heard in the corridor.
Totty had barely time to withdraw the key from her brother’s box and to
bury the will under her own papers when John entered the room.
“Oh!” he exclaimed in evident surprise, “I thought I heard you shut your
box, and that you had finished.”
“No,” said Totty in an unsteady voice, bending her pale face over her
documents. “The lid fell, but I opened it again. I will call you when I
come out.”
John returned to his work without any suspicion of what had happened.
Then Totty extracted a hairpin from the coils of her brown hair and
tried to lift the seal of the will from the paper to which it was so
firmly attached. But she only succeeded in damaging it. There was
nothing to be done but to tear the envelope. Still using her hairpin she
slit open one end of the cover and drew out the document.
When she knew the contents, her face expressed unbounded surprise. It
had never entered her head that Tom could leave his money to George Wood
of all people in the world.
“What a fool I have been!” she exclaimed under her breath.
Then she began to reflect upon the consequences of what she had done,
and her curiosity being satisfied, her fears began to assume serious
proportions. Was it a criminal act that she had committed? She gazed
rather helplessly at the torn envelope. It would be impossible to
restore it. It would be equally impossible to put the will back into the
box, loose and unsealed, without her husband’s noticing the fact the
next time he had occasion to look into Tom Craik’s papers. He would
remember very well that he had sealed it and marked it on the outside.
The envelope, at least, must disappear at once. She crumpled it into as
small a compass as possible and put it into her jacket. It would be very
simple to burn it as soon as she was at home. But how to dispose of the
will itself was a much harder matter. She dared not destroy that also,
for that might turn out to be a deliberate theft, or fraud, or whatever
the law called such deeds. On the other hand, her brother might ask for
it at any time and if it were not in the box it could not be
forthcoming, and her husband would get into trouble. It would be easy
for Tom to suspect that Sherrington Trimm had destroyed the will, in
order that his wife, as next of kin and only heir-at-law should get the
fortune. She thought that, as it was, Tom had shown an extraordinary
belief in human nature, though when she thought of her husband’s known
honesty she understood that nobody could mistrust him. He himself would
doubtless be the first to discover the loss. What would he do? He would
go to Tom and make him execute a duplicate of the will that was lost.
Meanwhile, and in case Tom died before Sherrington came back, Totty
could put the original in some safe place, where she could cause it to
be found if necessary—behind one of those boxes, for instance, or in
some corner of the strong room. Nothing that was locked up between those
four walls could ever be lost. If Tom died, she would of course be told
that a will had been made and was missing. John Bond would come to her
in great distress, and she would come down to the office and help in the
search. The scheme did not look very diplomatic, but she was sure that
there was nothing else to be done. It was the only way in which she
could avoid committing a crime while avoiding also the necessity of
confessing to her husband that she had committed an act of supreme
folly.
She folded the paper together and looked about the small room for a
place in which to hide it. As she was looking she thought she heard John
Bond’s step again. She had no time to lose for she would not be able to
get rid of him if he entered the strong room a third time. To leave it
on one of the shelves would be foolish, for it might be found at any
time. She could see no chink or crack into which to drop it, and John
was certainly coming. Totty in her desperation thrust the paper into the
bosom of her dress, shut up her own box noisily and went out.
She thought that John Bond looked at her very curiously when she went
away, though the impression might well be the result of her own guilty
fears. As a matter of fact he was surprised by her extreme pallor and
was on the point of asking if she were ill. But he reflected that the
strong room was a chilly place and that she might be only feeling cold,
and he held his tongue.
The paper seemed to burn her, and she longed to be in her own house
where she could at least lock it up until she could come to some wise
decision in regard to it. She leaned back in her carriage in an agony of
nervous fear. What if John Bond should chance to be the one who made the
discovery? He probably knew of the existence of the will, and he very
probably had seen it and knew where it was. It was strange that she had
not thought of that. If, for instance, it happened that he needed to
look at some of her brother’s papers that very day, would he not notice
the loss and suspect her? After all, he knew as well as any one what she
had to gain by destroying the will, if he knew what it contained. How
much better it would have been to put it back in its place even without
the envelope! How much better anything would be than to feel that she
might be found out by John Bond!
She was already far up town, but in her distress she did not recognise
her whereabouts, and leaning forward slightly looked through the window.
As fate would have it, the only person near the carriage in the street
was George Wood, who had recognised it and was trying to get a glimpse
of herself. When he saw her, he bowed and smiled, just as he always did.
Totty nodded hastily and fell back into her seat. A feeling of sickening
despair came over her, and she closed her eyes.